The flag of Haute-Loire shows two hands coming out of clouds with a crozier and a sword: the arms of the Velay proposed in 1950, without official status.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field with a 2:3 ratio, red, with a scalloped white border and two hands coming out of blue clouds, one from each side.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag associated with Haute-Loire is a red field with a scalloped white border and two hands coming out of blue clouds, one on each side: one holds a crozier and the other a sword. They are the arms of the Velay, proposed in 1950 and without official status.
Haute-Loire is a French department with its capital in Le Puy-en-Velay. The design was proposed in 1950 and never officially adopted: it is a proposal, not a departmental flag in force.
The two hands coming out of the clouds are the arms of the Velay, the historic province of Le Puy. The crozier and the sword are attributes of power —the first religious, the second temporal— and they appear facing each other.
It has never changed. Having no official status, there are no documented versions or reforms either.
Red
the colour of the field.
White border
scalloped, with the dented curve all around the field.
Two hands
white, each coming out of a blue cloud, one from each side.
Crozier
in the flagpole hand.
Sword
in the fly hand.
The design was presented in 1950. More than seventy years later it is still a proposal without official status. In France, departments are in a peculiar situation: many have no flag of their own and use that of their region or of the state.
The two hands do not hold the same thing. One carries the crozier, symbol of ecclesiastical authority; the other, the sword, of temporal power. It is a medieval scheme, one of those in which two forces are shown as both opposed and complementary.
The white edging is not an interior stripe: it is a scalloped border all around the field. The scallop —the toothed curve— is a device in the arms of the Velay for separating the field from the border without needing a straight line.
Test what you have read about the flag of Department of Haute-Loire.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Chabe01, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0.
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